mlessly
for two or three hours, and wake to work again and drive with Clayton
Rand in the evening. It seemed to her at times as if that life would go
on breathlessly forever, and then again she knew it would not go on; for
she had planned the end toward which it was tending, and the end was
almost there.

One afternoon, as she came home from her work flushed and covered with
dust, yet looking like an earth-queen in her triumphant health, she had
to pass Alida's house, and Alida's mother was waiting for her by the
gate. As Dorcas came on swiftly, she had a thought that Alida was not
very wise, or she would keep her lovers away from Mrs. Roe. The mother
and daughter were too much alike. The older woman was a terrible
prophecy. The fairness of youth had faded in her into a soft ivory, her
hair was a yellow wisp tightly coiled, and her mouth drooped in a meagre
discontent. She regarded Dorcas frowningly from sharp eyes, and Dorcas
stepped more proudly. She had fancied this onslaught might await her.

"Dorcas Lee!" called the woman sharply. "Dorcas Lee!"

Then, as Dorcas stopped, in a calm inquiry, the woman went on
rushingly, all the words she had not meant to say tumbling forth as she
had thought them.

"Dorcas Lee, what are you carryin' on for, the way you be, with Clayton
Rand? There ain't a decent girl in town would step in an' ketch anybody
up like that. You'll get yourself talked about, if you ain't now. I was
a friend to your mother an' I'm a friend to you, an' now I've gone out
o' my way to give you warnin'."

Dorcas looked past her up the garden walk and at the porch where Alida
sat rocking back and forth, her hands busy as ever with her delicate
work.

"Alida!" she called softly. "'Lida, you come here a minute. I want to
speak to you."

Alida laid down her work with care and placed her thimble in the basket.
Then she came along the garden path, swaying and floating as she always
walked, her pretty head moving rhythmically.

"'Lida, you come a step or two with me," said Dorcas gently, when the
girl was at the gate. "I want to speak to you."

Alida opened the gate and, without a glance at her mother, stepped out
upon the dusty path. People said Mrs. Roe talked so much that everybody
had long ago done listening to her, and perhaps she had done expecting
it.

"You'd ought to have suthin' over your head," she called to Alida.
"You'll be 's black as an Injun."

Dorcas took a long stride into the roadside